Sort of. The occasion was the much-hyped "Undefeated" match between local boy Floyd Mayweather and British fighter Ricky Hatton, hosted by MGM Grand Garden Arena on December 8, 2007, and which saw a British invasion in the region of 20,000-25,000 fans, here to support their boy. Sadly for them, Mayweather defeated Hatton by TKO in the tenth round -- a fact that evidently led to the need for some serious sorrow-drowning.
We actually spoke with a beverage manager at MGM Grand soon after the fight, when the "drunk dry" story was already circulating (and the size of the visiting Brit contingent had already swelled to a rumored 40,000 beer swillers). He clarified that the resort wasn't actually drunk dry, although its main warehouse was, necessitating the bringing in of reserve supplies not from the local 7-Eleven or Green Valley Grocery outlet but, somewhat less romantically, from an on-site auxiliary warehouse.
According to the staffer we spoke with back then, at the time an average Saturday night would see MGM Grand go though approximately 500 cases of beer; on the particular Saturday in question, however, the property's clientele drank its way through no less than 4,000 cases of beer -- and this is bearing in mind that some bars, for the first time in Vegas' history (that we know of), were actually closed down that night, due to the unruliness of the crowd (which earlier had booed the U.S. national anthem at the fight). As England's Daily Telegraph newspaper put it in the following day's headline, "Vegas will not miss boorish British boxing fans."
